The sailors called him Krok, from the sound he made when he tried to speak, and Krok he remained.  In moments of intense excitement he was said to have delivered himself of the word “Gug” also, but doubts were cast upon this.  He was of a placid and obliging nature, a diligent and trustworthy worker, and on the whole a cheerful companion with whom one could never fall out—­by word of mouth, at all events.

He was short and broad but very powerful, and his face, where it was not covered with hair, was seamed and meshed with little wrinkles, maybe from pinching it up in the glare of the sun as a boy.  His eyes were brown and very like a dog’s, and that was perhaps because he could not speak and tried to tell you things with them.  At times, when he could not make you understand, they were full of a straining anxiety, the painful striving of a dumb soul for utterance, which was very pitiful.

I remember very well quite breaking down once, when I was a very little fellow and was doing my best to explain something I wanted and could not make him understand.  In my haste I had probably begun in the middle and left him to guess the beginning.  Something I had certainly left out, for all I could get from Krok was puzzled shakes of the head and anxious snappings of the bewildered brown eyes.

“Oh, Krok, what a stupid, stupid man you are!” I cried at last, and I can see now the sudden pained pinching of the hairy face and the welling tears in the troubled brown eyes.

I flung my little arms half round his big neck and hugged myself tight to him, crying, “Oh, Krok, I love you!” and he fondled me and patted me and soothed me, and our discussion was forgotten.  And after that, boy as I was, and as wild and thoughtless as most, I do not think I ever wounded Krok’s soul again, for it was like striking a faithful dog or a horse that was doing his best.

But better times came—­to Krok, at all events—­when my mother began to teach me my letters.

That was in the short winter days and long evenings, when all the west was a shrieking black fury, out of which hurtled blasts so overpowering that you could lean up against them as against a wall, and with no more fear of falling, and the roar of great waters was never out of our ears.

In the daytime I would creep to the edge of the cliff, and lie flat behind a boulder, and watch by the hour the huge white waves as they swept round the Moie de Batarde and came ripping along the ragged side of Brecqhou like furious white comets, and hurled themselves in thunder on our Moie de Mouton and Tintageu.  Then the great granite cliffs and our house up above shook with their pounding, and Port a la Jument and Pegane Bay were all aboil with beaten froth, and the salt spume came flying over my head in great sticky gouts, and whirled away among the seagulls feeding in the fields behind.  When gale and tide played the same way, the mighty strife between the incoming